Pentecost Sunday: May 19, 2013

Gospel: John 20:19-23 OR John 14:15-16, 23B-26

John 20:19-23 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”

John 14:15-16, 23b-26 Jesus said to his disciples: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always.
“Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. Those who do not love me do not keep my words; yet the word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me.
“I have told you this while I am with you. The Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.”

Reflection: In both passages, Jesus teaches his disciples about the Holy Spirit. He wants Him to live with us in our homes. Every family is called to be a tablernacle where God dwells. Is Jesus a permanent member of your family or a temporary guest? Today the promise is given. The choice is ours.

Christ at the Center, Home Edition, formerly Where 2 or 3 Are Gathered: Home Edition, is a resource of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. As we work together to put Christ at the Center, to nurture our Eucharistic communities and to revitalize domestic churches, we invite you to use this resource to reflect on the Sunday Gospels in your home. A complete prayer aid can be found here.

I was babysitting our kids outside the other day.

I’m a better parent than I am babysitter.

In the midst of the chaos happening about the yard, I noticed a white pickup come to screeching halt in front of our house. The bed of the truck was filled with an odd cooler attachment bearing the logo of a distant steak company, one of those distant warehouses that will overnight steaks to your front door.  Immediately three men got out of the cab – let’s pause there.

Any time three grown men get out of those two doors of a pickup, one must pause and either laugh or scratch his head. I could do neither, because right after I paused one member of the trio began accosting me. He was trying to sell me on steak by creating some diversion that involved free chicken, pork, or seafood. All the while, my children took it upon themselves to act normal. So the three-year-old started jumping off the retaining wall onto the driveway, and the one-year-old made successive sprints toward the street. My stale steak salesman was apparently oblivious to all of this as he rambled on and on about his warehouse in Timbuktu.

Well, my sufficiently vague answers to all of this guy’s questions prompted him to call in reinforcements – the Warehouse Manager. This guy strolled across the street and had only just begun his spiel when the cops arrived. See, you can’t solicit in my suburb. As suddenly as they arrived, the three men folded themselves in half and squeezed back in the cozy cab and were gone.

Check out the analogies to temptation and sin here.

 •   I was minding my own business on my turf.

 •   A blasted truck arrived and three guys got out and immediately began interrogating myself and some neighbors about the meats in our fridges…questioning its quality and promoting their own steaks and meats. Satan does the same. He accuses, interrogates, sows, doubts, and lies. And often really enticing ones…like someone offering you free meat at 4:45pm. Satan’s steak company promotes dated meat sliced up across the country – temptations are always a fraud, less-than-really-desireable. Satan twists truths into lies.

 •   The original salesman ambitiously approached my property with a friendly face. He asked if he could talk to me and the moment I said yes, he launched into his plug. Satan crashes into our lives with the same intensity, and as soon as we leave him room he begins the barrage that is temptation. It is often the case that temptation seemingly comes out of nowhere, like a steak company from a far off land crashing into your neighborhood.

 •   The initial attacks of temptation are often subtle. Ironically, the first man who approached me was small and spoke in a high-pitched voice that was hard to understand. It was cloudy and vague. My responses to him were cloudy and vague. Honestly, the thought of free meat at that hour sounded good because I was hungry. But I knew it meant buying into less than a boon. Once our defenses are down, Satan sends in the big guns, the warehouse managers of hell who try to seal the final deal – the act of sin.

 •   Fortunately the Cop has come and definitively destroyed sin and death once and for all…and His grace is sufficient. Perhaps the place where the voice of Christ is heard most clearly, even in the midst of temptation, is the conscience – at least in the conscience that has not been crusted over by malformation and habitual sin. This is where the interior battle is won and Christ reigns.

The result is freedom, which is exactly what I felt when those three stooges squished into their truck and drove down the street with a police escort.

Solemnity of the Ascension of our Lord: May 12, 2013

Gospel: Luke 24:46-53

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer
and rise from the dead on the third day
and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins,
would be preached in his name
to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
You are witnesses of these things.
And behold I am sending the promise of my Father upon you;
but stay in the city
until you are clothed with power from on high.”

Then he led them out as far as Bethany,
raised his hands, and blessed them.
As he blessed them he parted from them
and was taken up to heaven.
They did him homage
and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy,
and they were continually in the temple praising God.

Reflection: The Gospel reading ends with the ascension of Jesus “up to heaven.” It goes on to say that his disciples “returned to Jerusalem with great joy.” The Ascension of Jesus is a day of great rejoicing and hope for us as well, no matter what our current circumstances are — as we look forward to our own ascension. Why is this so? What steps can you take to be more open to our risen and ascended Lord’s presence during the day?

Christ at the Center, Home Edition, formerly Where 2 or 3 Are Gathered: Home Edition, is a resource of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. As we work together to put Christ at the Center, to nurture our Eucharistic communities and to revitalize domestic churches, we invite you to use this resource to reflect on the Sunday Gospels in your home. A complete prayer aid can be found here.

You will, without doubt, succeed, if you never lose sight of the great consoling truth that nothing happens in this world but by the command of God, or at least, with His divine permission; and that whatever He wills, or permits turns infallibly to the advantages of those who are submissive and resigned [to God]. – Jean-Pierre de Caussade.

Joseph Claims Benjamin as his Slave’, painting by Cristóbal de Villalpando, 1700-1714

I have recently been working my way through a spiritually intense book called Abandonment to Divine Providence by Jean-Pierre de Caussade. Caussade makes a reference to Benjamin, the youngest son of Jacob and half-brother to Joseph. Benjamin is a minor Old Testament character, but the reference really struck me as a wonderful image in making sense of sorrow and suffering:

Joseph caused Benjamin to weep, and his servants kept his secret from this beloved brother. Joseph deceived him, and not all his penetration and wit could fathom this deception. Benjamin and his brothers were plunged into unspeakable sorrow but Joseph was only playing a trick on them, although the poor brothers could see nothing but evil without any remedy. When he reveals himself and puts everything right they admire his wisdom in making them think that all is lost, and to cause them despair about that which turns out to be a subject of the greatest joy they have every experienced (Abandonment, Section II – Diversity of Grace).

Caussade is referencing the famous story of Joseph, sold into slavery by his brothers only to rise through the ranks of Egyptian hierarchy. In a time of famine, Joseph’s brothers are forced to leave their homeland and travel to Egypt in the hopes of finding salvation. Instead they are confronted by an unrecognized Joseph who turns their hoped for salvation into their worst nightmare. Suddenly they face imprisonment and the loss of their beloved younger brother Benjamin. When all seems lost, the curtains are pulled aside and a salvation even greater than the one they first sought is revealed. Joseph is not dead. He is alive, and he offers forgiveness, reconciliation and restoration.

Joseph is a Christ figure in this story. God does not intentionally trick us like Joseph did to his brothers but we can all think of times in our life when we could not fathom the mysterious will of God. We can all point to moments in our life when we were plunged into an unspeakable sorrow that seemed to have no remedy.

That is what is so glorious about the Resurrection! Who could have imagined that the passion and death of the Messiah would tear apart the curtain that divided us from God and offer us salvation, redemption, and reunion with the very Person we put to death?

So what are we to do when we find ourselves like Benjamin and his brothers, when the mysterious Will of God becomes unfathomable? The answer is as simple as it is difficult; submit, resign, abandon yourself to Christ who rose from the dead.

Photo credit: used from public domain

Have you ever come to a point where something you thought you knew became a thing that you realize you never really knew like you thought you did. I know this might seem like a convoluted question. And maybe it is. I just chalk it up to the mystery of Jesus Christ.

Recently I was preparing prayer for a parish staff meeting. The daily Gospel reading for the prayer was part of the Bread of Life Discourse in the Gospel of John-namely John 6: 44-51. Jesus says “I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my Flesh for the life of the world.”  

So I started to think about this reading, meditating upon it, thinking about the usual things like Eucharist, meal, sacrifice. I wasn’t sure what I wanted the focus of our prayer to be. Possibly on the paschal mystery but at this point nothing grabbed me. Tiring of the same old, same old, I knew I wanted to be a little more exploratory and go deeper with a new angle.    

When Jesus says “I am the living bread…whoever eats this bread will live forever…the bread I will give is my Flesh for the life of the world”- I thought of the enduring presence of Christ down through 2000-plus years. Jesus is present now, but not in the historical reality of being his own human person, not in his actual physical body. I thought of the indwelling spirit of Christ in each person who has ever lived since Jesus ascended into heaven. It is an eternal presence. It’s the Holy Spirit and it’s the Eucharist. It is real. It is real presence and it is forever. And it is for the “life of the world.” It is for us and for all-time!

Jesus is for us, with us, in us, and is present in our lives from now on-never away. We are never alone. For me, this is a deeper way to think of real presence. I read in a simple catechetical publication entitled Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion: A Parish Formation Program published by the Archdiocese of Cincinnati a reference to “the whole Christ” as that which we receive in terms of real presence. This is something which St. Augustine taught. When we receive Jesus in the Eucharist, it is his whole self, body and soul, the eternal Christ, human and divine. It comes from the total self-offering and self-giving of Jesus to each of us.

Imagine what it would be like for us to do total self-offering for another. Some of us make commitments which try to be such a total self-offering. We profess vows of marriage or religious profession. Some of us raise children. Some of us are ordained. Some of us become missionaries or make other ministerial life commitments. Some of us overlap in such commitments. We try daily and struggle, sometimes in heroic ways to live into and grow in what it means to do self-offering. But the completeness of self-offering which Christ did for us mostly will never be achieved by any one of us this side of heaven (St. Maximilian notwithstanding).  

When I think of “the whole Christ” and real presence I think of a depth of love which I cannot fathom. I think of what Christ went through to become human, to live, to love, to die, to ascend, so that he could be with us each more closely in a way that he could not- had he not have been God (as Pope Francis referred to in one of his recent messages about the necessity of the Ascension). Christ did this so that any one of us could become more divine, more loved and loving, and eventually more fully human in service to others. This is a total gift, love as complete wholeness given over for the sake of the other. May I never take it for granted.    

Photo Credit: Used under Creative Commons Licensing, flickr.com/mike_tn

Sixth Sunday of Easter: May 5, 2013

Gospel: John 14:23-29

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Whoever loves me will keep my word,
and my Father will love him,
and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.
Whoever does not love me does not keep my words;
yet the word you hear is not mine
but that of the Father who sent me.

“I have told you this while I am with you.
The Advocate, the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in my name,
will teach you everything
and remind you of all that I told you.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.
Not as the world gives do I give it to you.
Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.
You heard me tell you,
‘I am going away and I will come back to you.’
If you loved me,
you would rejoice that I am going to the Father;
for the Father is greater than I.
And now I have told you this before it happens,
so that when it happens you may believe.”

Reflection: Jesus gives this advice: “do not let your hearts be troubled.” Worry and anxiety can consume our lives, preventing us from realizing the love which surrounds us and binds us togethr. What worries do w each need to let go of today?

Christ at the Center, Home Edition, formerly Where 2 or 3 Are Gathered: Home Edition, is a resource of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. As we work together to put Christ at the Center, to nurture our Eucharistic communities and to revitalize domestic churches, we invite you to use this resource to reflect on the Sunday Gospels in your home. A complete prayer aid can be found here.

I ask my students at Xavier this question fairly regularly. When we read various creation stories, some of them quite bloody and violent and compare them to the accounts in Genesis. When we talk about the stories of the birth and crucifixion of Jesus. When we talk about suffering. What kind of God do we believe in?

I get the impression that many people take a pretty dark view of God. They seem to think that bad things happen because God wants them to. God is teaching us a lesson or punishing us or testing us. When I think of God, I think of my parents or of any good, loving parents. My parents never hurt me deliberately to teach me a lesson. They never tested me by depriving me of that which I need to thrive. Parents who behave like this are considered neglectful or abusive. I can never understand why we suggest that God is like a bad parent.

In the gospels, Jesus describes God as the parent who welcomes back the son who turned away, as the person who drops everything to search for the lost coin or sheep, as Abba (Daddy). This seems more like a God who is empathetic toward our suffering, not one who causes it. This isn’t a God who is wishy-washy, though. God forgives and welcomes us back, and expects us to do the same. To me, that is hardest task we face—far more difficult than giving up meat or going to Mass when I’m exhausted or memorizing the Ten Commandments. God expects us to forgive as God forgives: prodigally, beyond any reasonable measure. This means forgiving the most heinous human beings we can think of. And it isn’t hard to think of them because we experience them far too often and far too closely.

As we reach the time of year when we honor mothers and fathers, I think it is important to think about what the people in our lives show us about God. The people we love most are the people who comfort us in our sorrow, encourage us when we are frustrated, feel our pain. They are the people who bring us light in the midst of darkness. That is the God I believe in.

Late one recent Friday night, I was waiting in the high school parking lot for my daughter’s team bus to return from a meet when I saw 5 young men pull in near me. Four of them stripped off their shirts while the fifth began painting huge letters on their chests.  P-R-O-M.  It was about 30 degrees outside, so they hustled back into their cars until the bus was visible down the road, at which time the lettered four hopped into the bed of a pick-up and stood in line, while the 5^th produced a sign asking one of the girls on the team to the dance.

A couple things struck me: 1)How did the guy doing the asking get to keep his shirt on while his wingmen froze?  2) For their sakes, I sure hope she said “yes”.

Asking someone to a high school dance sure has become something of a spectacle.  (just google “prom proposal” if you doubt my words)  My own son staged a crime scene in front of a girl’s locker.  “Prom: Would it kill you to say Yes?”  I’m not sure when the elaborate Prom invite became the norm, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t me who started the trend.  Mine went something like this: “Prom’s in a couple weeks.  Wanna go?” 

The thing about the elaborate dance invite, or its older cousin, the Jumbotron wedding proposal, and similar stunts, is that it’s awfully hard for the invitee to turn them down.  It feels pretty cold-blooded to reject someone who’s gone to all that trouble, especially if it’s in public.  The cynical part of me sees these stunts as somewhat manipulative, because we know it’s hard for one person to reject another in public.  But there is something sort of endearing about the fact that someone cares so much about spending time with a person that they’ll paint up their buddies at 11:30 PM or have the Houston Rockets call their girlfriend to center court for a “special half-time show”.  But people do say “No” all the time.  (just google “wedding proposal fail” if you doubt my words.)  The thing is, no matter how much trouble we go to, the other person still has free will, and can choose to reject us.

 The same is true with God.  He doesn’t try to manipulate us – it’s not like he’s worried about embarrassment or humiliation.  But He does go totally over the top for us.  I mean, it’s one thing to fill a someone’s car with balloons or to enlist the help of your Science teacher to stage an “experiment” in the hopes that your intended will go to a dance with you.  It’s another thing entirely to leave Paradise, be born in a dirty stable on the outskirts of a podunk desert town, “take the form of a slave” (as it says in Philippians), and then be tortured and killed so you demonstrate just how much God is willing to do so people can spend eternity in heaven.  If a prom invite in the parking lot is hard to reject, think what it takes to look at the cross and reject Jesus. But people do say “No” all the time. (just google “atheist” if you doubt my words). The thing is, no matter how much trouble God goes to, we still have free will, and we can choose to reject his love.

As CS Lewis wrote in The Great Divorce, “There are only two kinds of people in the end:  those who say to God ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to who God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’  Those that are in hell choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no hell.  No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it.  Those who seek find.  To those who knock it is opened.” (just google “Matthew 7:8” if you doubt his words) 

What it comes down to is that every single day is a brand new chance to say “Yes” to the heavenly dance.  What will you say today?

April 28, 2013: Fifth Sunday of Easter

Gospel: John 13:31-33a; 34-35

When Judas had left them, Jesus said,
“Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.
If God is glorified in him,
God will also glorify him in himself,
and God will glorify him at once.
My children, I will be with you only a little while longer.
I give you a new commandment: love one another.
As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.
This is how all will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.”

Reflection:

In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us, “Love one another.” Love holds a family together. It is not what a family does which makes it outstanding; rather, it is what a family has — love for one another. How does our family love one another?

Christ at the Center, Home Edition, formerly Where 2 or 3 Are Gathered: Home Edition, is a resource of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. As we work together to put Christ at the Center, to nurture our Eucharistic communities and to revitalize domestic churches, we invite you to use this resource to reflect on the Sunday Gospels in your home. A complete prayer aid can be found here.

During Easter week my wife and I went out to dinner at our local Mexican restaurant and got to talking with Jose’, the restaurant owner, who happens to be a fellow parishioner. We were all talking about how this past Lent had been our best in many years when Jose’ said that now he’s looking for the “fruits of Lent”.  His point was that if the spiritual disciplines we began in Lent were beneficial, it doesn’t make any sense to quit at Easter.  Lent should yield good fruit well afterward, and if it doesn’t, then we have wasted an opportunity.  If we quit doing the good things we began in Lent, he said, then Lent was about us, and not about Christ.  That conversation has really stuck with me because Jose’ was right on the money. 

Most Lents I give up something – coffee or TV or some other simple thing.  But this past Lent I decided to do something concrete, and so I committed to praying before the Blessed Sacrament twice a week, before school, during my daughter’s early morning choir practice in church. And since I knew I wouldn’t keep it up on my own, I invited all my facebook connections and everyone on my email distribution list to join me.  I knew if I told people that I’d have the church doors unlocked by 7:15, I’d better follow through. I was surprised by the number of people who accepted the invitation and who would come for 5, 10 or 20 minutes.  Not one single morning all Lent was I ever alone.  Jose’ was there just about every time, and he usually had a couple of his young sons with him. 

I remember the first morning seemed to last forever.  I felt a little awkward –I didn’t know what to do with 45 minutes of silence, and after I finished my rosary I was like, “Okaaayy, now what do I do?”  But that awkwardness did not last long; by Holy Week I found myself wishing I could stay longer. I realized over time that I didn’t have to do anything – I just had to be.  Christ would do the rest. The first few mornings, I found myself filling the time with a lot of talking, but as Lent sped on I became more and more comfortable with silence, and the more silent I was, the more the Holy Spirit worked; and the more the Spirit worked, the more peace I felt and the faster the time flew. 

By Holy Thursday I knew that there was no way I could just go back to my pre-Lenten routine.  I knew I had to keep coming back to our Lord.  The change in my habit had begun a change in my heart, and I saw that this change in my heart was starting to make a change in my daily thoughts, words, and actions.  Jose’ had put it perfectly – I was beginning to see the “fruits of Lent”, and it would be foolishness for me to let those fruits rot on the vine.  Fruit is meant to be harvested and consumed – it exists to keep us healthy and whole. But just like apples and peaches and plums, spiritual fruits must be tended, nurtured and cared for if they are to fulfill their purpose. 

It may seem sort of silly, but here I am at 46, a cradle Catholic, a 20 year veteran of parish ministry, and I feel like I’m just now really beginning to understand what it means to let the Lord work in my life.  And I gotta tell you, this fruit tastes divine!

I’d love to know – what were the fruits of your Lent?  How are you harvesting that fruit this Eastertide?